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The system tray is the location on the far right of the Windows 95/NT 4.0 (or newer version of Windows) taskbar. Within it always resides the clock, and often other user-installed programs that monitor the system or run constantly. If you double-click on items in the systray, you usually get some sort of window to open up and tell you about why the item is there and what you can do with it.
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System Tray - Pat, please conceal my e-mail address ...On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:50:08 -0400, Method to Madness wrote: I was thinking of getting Packet8 for phone service with my house. $19/month is not a bad price at all when Vonage is more and Verizon certainly is a huge rip off. I really need to get out of the Verizon system, since they're just sucking us dry until cable companies eventually put them out of business for home phone service. Do these type Internet phone services work with home alarm systems? It would really suck if I had to keep Verizon or "regular" phone service all because of my alarm system ... UGH!The first thing to be aware of is that Packet8 by default compressesspeech to a much greater degree than, say, VoicePulse or Vonage. Ihave heard of people successfully sending FAXes over both of thelatter services (although it works best when FAX transmission speedcan be slowed to 9600 bps or less), but never over Packet8. BothVoicePulse and Vonage offer high and medium compression settings, butthose are optional and not the default (G.711, which is a highquality, low compression codec is the default), whereas Packet8 onlyoffers high compression and there is no way to disable it. And yes, itdoes affect voice quality also to some degree.So if an alarm system is transmitting data using a built-in modem,it's not as likely to work with Packet8 as with a service that usesthe G.711 codec. This is also true of other devices that send andreceive data. For example, TiVO or satellite receivers that "phonehome" often won't work at all on Packet8, but *sometimes* work withthe higher quality codecs (again, it often depends on whether there'sa way to slow down the data transmission rate).Now, having said that, some alarm companies are seeing the handwritingon the wall and are starting to offer alarm systems that either use abroadband Internet connection directly to communicate with home base,or use other workarounds. For example, an employee of ADT inCincinnati, Ohio posted a message to a BroadbandReports.com thread (at) thatindicates that in some cases, particularly with a VoIP provider thatuses high compression, you may need a newer ADT system that uses"contact ID." This employee explains that "contact ID" is ADT's newestformat that sounds like DTMF (dual tone multi-frequency) tones. Alsothe new system dials a 1-800 number, so it would not need to bereprogrammed for 11 digit dialing.Also, some alarm companies seem to be more "VoIP friendly" thanothers. A couple of people posted that they have used the services ofNextAlarm.com over VoIP (see thread at).Still, I would not expect any service to work properly over ahigh-compression codec -- if it does, consider yourself very lucky.One other thing to be aware of is that alarm systems are usually wiredto be the first device on the phone line, so a burglar can't sabotagethe system simply by picking up an extension phone. My page on "Howto Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home" athttp://michigantelephone.mi.org/distribute.html has a short sectionshowing how alarm systems need to be connected. Basically, this is theone situation where you can't just plug your VoIP adapter into anyjack on the line, but instead you have to connect it ahead of thealarm system for it to work properly (assuming the alarm connectsthrough a RJ31X jack, which seems to be a fairly standard way to hookup these devices). Also, your alarm system must dial out using touchtones rather than dial pulses.I don't think you will have to do without an alarm system in order touse VoIP, but whether you can use your existing alarm system withPacket8 is another matter entirely. You probably won't know for sureuntil you try it, though.Jack
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